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Keep working at it, and eliminating more and more "exceptions," and you'll get there.wildgoose wrote:Second, cravings for fat take up to 3 months to go away. The more often you feed those little fat receptors, the longer it takes for them to downregulate. Your taste buds will adjust, but you have to put up with a period of time where food doesn’t taste as "yummy" as you might want it to. I did 35 days on just 5 foods when I started. I don’t recommend that approach, but I do recommend keeping food very basic and simple, especially at the beginning.
Health 1st wrote:Hello, Mark + Everyone!
I just wanted to let you know that I haven't skipped out on you. Unfortunately the months of little sleep + not always eating well (MWL) finally caught up with me this past Friday. I hope to join you all by posting this Friday/Saturday.
wildgoose wrote:Sometimes it feels like a tempting food is reaching out, grabbing you by the collar, prying your jaws open, and leaping into your mouth. The desire is so strong, it feels like you HAVE to satisfy it, RIGHT AWAY.
But you don’t. Nothing awful will happen to you if you don’t inhale that sweet, salty, fatty thing that’s calling to you. You will be uncomfortable for a short while. Maybe for a little more than a short while. Ignore it. Distract yourself. It will pass. And then you will be all right. Better than all right, in fact. In addition to feeling physically better, you will have achieved a mental and emotional victory that is worthy of pride.
wildgoose wrote:MWL is a choice. A choice you’re making for your health and your weight, to get where you want to be. It gets easier with time. Does the Pleasure Trap ever quit tempting you? No. You learn to stay away from the biggest temptations, and how to get right back into the groove if you stray. But are you ever totally immune? No. It’s always a choice. I look at a year-plus at goal weight, a level of health that I haven’t known in years, a wardrobe where everything is comfortably loose and everything in the closet fits — and I’m OK with not having some of my old comfort foods around.
Gimmelean wrote: Wildgoose, your post made me realize how just a few tastes keep reinforcing the desire for fat in foods. For me, sweets do the same. I need to completely stop and wonder what the five foods you started with were if you could please share. Was your structure a Mary’s mini of sorts?
wildgoose wrote:Noella, sometimes you just have to do the best you can and leave it at that. Don’t let lack of perfection steal the joy of celebrating the holidays with your family. You are not failing, you are coping. And that’s OK.
I know it’s easy to get grumpy when things don’t fall into place (and yes, I can imagine what a grumpy Goose I’d be if I were at someone else's house for an extended period). Food-wise, the best thing to stave off the stress of being in a different environment is starch. Make sure you get enough of it. It’ll help keep those cookies from leaping into your mouth. Also see what you can do with raw veggies or fruit. Get enough of those, and you won’t be eating as much of the higher-calorie-density stuff.
Ask your family for a little help on the basics (like let you cook and store a batch of potatoes to have on hand, let you make a raw veggie tray for everybody to snack on....), then don't sweat the rest. It’s not forever. You will be back in your own environment soon enough, and while you may have a tough week or so climbing out of the Pleasure Trap, you’ll be able to do it.
In the meantime, breathe. Take a walk. Play with any available child. Carve out some alone time if you need it. Make memories that don’t involve food. Have a very Merry Christmas.
Goose
Mark Cooper wrote:Noella - What a happy occasion having your whole family together for the first time in 2 years must be! That seems like a real blessing. Offer yourself kindness and compassion, recognizing that these environmental, social, familial and emotional dynamics are powerful and rarely easy to navigate. Perfection is often unattainable, but we can always take a deep breath, forgive ourselves, reset, and aim to simply do the best we can under a given set of circumstances. Try to learn what you can about how to make it through these trying situations, and remember that you will eventually return to a context over which you have greater control. I wish you the very best.
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